Sriracha Addiction?

Definitely. At work, we used to take turns buying it at the store and bringing it in. I managed to talk the boss into buying us some. A friend of mine says he grew up with a kid whose family makes the stuff. He needs to hook me up. I need it for professional reasons, of course.

Definitel love the stuff. The more common sauce in many, if not most, parts of the US is the "Rooster" brand, made by Huy Fong foods in California, but if you can find Shark brand, which is a more "authentic" Thai sauce, give it a try. It's my favorite sriracha sauce, and is quite different from the Huy Fong stuff. No additives or preservatives in Shark brand, and, IMO, a cleaner, more defined taste than the Huy Fong.

shel

yep, that and chili garlic paste.....really like the sweet chili sauce too, we make crab rangoons with blue crab claw.

Tony Chacere season salt and crab boil is always around too....makes boiled shrimp so much better. I prefer the liquid boil to the dry, if bags of seasoning are around I'll use that first.

I like it but it doesn't take much of it to light me on fire.

I heard a chef on the radio talking about the stuff - she said they call it Rooster Poo in her kitchen...

Maybe we could start a support group or something because i thought I was the only one. The way my mother and many southerners obsess on Texas Pete, I obsess on my dear friend the rooster. Which at home is refered to "Al's cock sauce" by my sweetie. I put it everywhere. Popcorn, eggs, bagels with Nutella, if its edible, it has worn a little sriracha. I'll be hunting up the shark brand to give it a try, though.

I think our version of a "support group" would probably just entail ensuring we were all well-supplied with the stuff.

Texas Pete is for rookies.

Oh I know TP is for rookies but I'm from Winston-Salem, NC, which is where it is made and bottled. You'd think it was a nutritional supplement around here. If a restaurant or food stand doesn't have Texas Pete, they won't be open long unless they sell something that REALLY appeals to the ladies. They all carry the stuff in their purses...

bagels nutella and sirachi?!!! whoa, you are in a whole 'nother league.

Its called living as an independant student. A lot of odd things start looking really tasty, when tuition, books, and rent are due. Unfortunately, once a taste for odd things is acquired, sometimes they don't go away. :lol:

gotcha....my first cherub makes ramen and BBQ sauce as a snack.

Psycho, that's just gross....I'm trying to stretch my mind around hazelnut, chocolate, sweet sausage panini....nope no mole connection really.....

I can see banana, bacon, peanut butter ala Elvis (RIP).

That would be an interesting thread....what do/did you eat when times were frugel?

I love hot sauces except that I can taste the preservative in the Sriracha I've had. Wikipedia says

Thai grocery stores carry the authentic Thai version, which usually has no preservatives and is refrigerated after opening.

I'll try to get some of that.

I was in my preferred Asian market today looking for Shark brand because of this thread. They have nice big bottles of it. And it's cheaper than the rooster brand. Lower salt too which is good for me.

Phil

I've been meaning to order that Shark brand stuff. I'd rather only buy 1 bottle to sample first, but I can't see spending $3.50 on a bottle only to pay $7.50 for shipping. I can only find Hoy Fung, and another even worse brand out where I live--even in Chinatown. I suppose I should just breakdown and buy 5 bottles...:crazy:

You know what--Done ! I just ordered 5 bottles.

Does anyone know how long the shelf of it is? I don't know how fast the two of us can finish them.



Oh, and shame on Ming Tsai. I just read his Blue Ginger cookbook--he lists Sriracha as from Vietnam! Guess he never gave any thought to look on a map.

I see it on the tables in most vietnamese places, but rarely in Thai places. Not to say you're wrong, as the Shark brand is Thai as I recall. But I see it used more in Vietnamese recipes too.

Ming Tsai mentioned first tasting Sriracha in a Vietnamese restaurant when he was a kid. Yes, I agree that Sriracha is found on the tables in Vietnamese restaurants, not so much Thai restaurants.

What I'm getting at is the irony of it all: Sriracha, Thailand, literally, is named after the town where it came from. :smiles:

I can understand a celebrity chef like say, Alton Brown, messing up an Asian ingredient's origin (ever hear him pronounce the Chinese meat, Cha-shu? Spelled Char-sui (think Alton saying, Charrr-Sweee!), but Ming Tsai should know better. Especially considering the name of his Restaurant and cookbook is Blue Ginger, which is another name for galangal, the Thai ginger! (Alton's galangal pronunciation is humorous too)

Yes, i got your point. On the Cha Shu, I've seen lots of different spellings though Char Sil is the one I see the least.

Phil

Sri Racha is indeed a locale in Thailand. The guy that started "Rooster" brand ("Huy Fong"), David Tran, is a Vietnamese immigrant. He had a company in South Vietnam making hot sauces, including a Thai-style sriracha, until reunification. He fled to America shortly afterwards. The boat he left on was called Huy Fong. Like a few other immigrants -- for instance the guy who started Tapatio -- when Tran got to Los Angeles, he thought to himself, "Great country, too bad they don't have any good hot sauce." The rest is history.

For what it's worth, I like Shark, I like Rooster, I like Por Kwan. Rooster is the hottest and most straightforward, Por Kwan is the sweetest and most complex. Shark swims somewhere in between.

Is Huy Fong sriracha Thai, Vietnamese or American? I vote Angeleno.

BDL

Not to hijack the thread or take anything away from the noble sriracha, but TP was mentioned so I'll put in a word for my favorite workhorse hot sauces - Tapatio.

I live right by "Thai Town" (a little section of east Hollywood); think I'll go sriracha hunting today & I'll let y'all know what's on the shelves...

maybe pick up some sambal badjak too...

re chili addiction (this is a fun little article) -

I seem to recall a story about a prison or jail riot in New Mexico (?) by Latino prisoners demanding some hot sauce for their bland food. I remember talking about the story with friends & family who consider me a ferocious fire-eater (I'm not - they're just wimps).

This was at least 20 years ago. A little minor googling didn't turn anything up. Does this story ring a bell with anyone else?

I don't care to buy Rooster (Huy Fong) because it's packed in plastic bottles and because it's loaded with preservatives and additives.

scb

In Thai Town markets today:

Silom Market

Huy Fong - LA area - contains preservatives (P)
Double Chicken - Thai - no preservatives (NP)
Lee Kum Kee - Hong Kong - P

Bangluck Market

Grand Mountain - Thai - NP
Double Horse - Thai - NP
First World - Thai - NP
Shark - Thai - NP
Huy Fong
Lee Kum Kee

I picked up a bottle of Shark - $1.99/25oz

...and that's today's Thai Town Sriracha report...

Interesting! I didn't know about all that, and it sure does change the perspective of where Ming might have been coming from.

Wow. That is impressive. You have a Thaitown there? That is awesome! I'm kinda surprised at how small Chinatown is in Hawaii.

The funny thing is, at least according to the "neighborhood" signs that LA puts up, "Thai Town" & "Little Armenia" seem to be... the same place. East Hollywood.

I finally got some Sriracha sauce without preservatives. Here in Central Oregon we only have Safeway-type places for any "Asian" food.

In Corvallis there are 2 east-Asian grocers. I went to one on a previous visit and they had no preservative-free Sriracha.

This last weekend I went to another and checked ingredients, and found one with no preservatives--Shark brand. I wondered if the preservatives in the other brands were really what I was tasting that I didn't like. When I got home I opened the bottle up, hoping there was a difference, and,

YUM, I like it a lot better than others I had before, whatever the reason may be. Shark is tops!